


watercolor-painted sky

by stuffy_j



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Just a little bit), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Awkward Conversations, Barebacking, Flirting, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes-centric, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 09:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20273929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffy_j/pseuds/stuffy_j
Summary: When Jack had suggested this trip, Gabriel’s first instinct was to sayno, absolutely not. He didn’twantto go to Indiana and stare at nothing all day for a week. He didn’twantto see the horizon across miles of flat-ass land covered in nothing but corn. He didn’twantto be woken up at the crack of dawn because some fancy chickens couldn’t shut the fuck up.(He refused to think about the real reason he didn’t want to go: that it would be him and Jack, alone, for a week. For the first time since… since before Zurich.)Jack and Gabriel take a long-overdue vacation to Jack's family home, looking for answers they don't think they'll find.





	watercolor-painted sky

When Jack had suggested this trip, Gabriel’s first instinct was to say _no, absolutely not_. He didn’t _want_ to go to Indiana and stare at nothing all day for a week. He didn’t _want_ to see the horizon across miles of flat-ass land covered in nothing but corn. He didn’t _want_ to be woken up at the crack of dawn because some fancy chickens couldn’t shut the fuck up.

(He refused to think about the real reason he didn’t want to go: that it would be him and Jack, alone, for a week. For the first time since… since before Zurich.)

But there had been something in Jack’s eyes, some sort of muted disappointment, like he already knew that Gabriel was going to say no, and that had made Gabriel angry, that Jack thought he knew him better than he knew himself. So he’d said yes, and watched with satisfaction as surprise had bloomed across Jack’s face, surprise and a little bit of trepidation, like it had just hit Jack that they were going to be alone together. For a week. No one and nothing else there as distractions.

_No take backs_, Gabriel had thought, but then Jack had nodded and promised to put the trip together.

And now here they were, stepping out of the hovercar in front of a dilapidated farm house that had definitely seen better days. The wet heat of Indiana summer blasted Gabriel in the face as soon as he exited the cool interior of the car, and he was shot through with a sudden, visceral longing for the dry breezes of the California coast. Why hadn’t they gone to Los Angeles, if Jack was so hard up for a trip home? Jack had _loved_ LA. In fact, other than the Christmas before Jack’s aunt passed away, they’d gone to visit LA every time they’d been stateside instead. 

Taking a deep breath of soupy, humid air, Gabriel grit his teeth and looked back to see Jack already unloading the car and hauling their bags up the sagging front porch of the house. Sweat was already dampening Jack’s white hair. Gabriel probably took more solace than he should in the fact that he wasn’t the only one affected by the heat so quickly. He quickly pulled out the remaining bags -- mostly groceries from the store they’d stopped at in Bloomington -- and walked up the steps as well. Jack had put his bags down and was now struggling with the lock to the front door. The wood looked slightly warped from rain and heat and neglect, and was obviously making the door stick. 

“We could break it down,” Gabriel suggested, half-joking. 

Jack didn’t respond. Gabriel rolled his eyes. This was going to be a _great_ week.

The door finally creaked open on painfully rusty hinges, and Jack picked the bags up again and disappeared into the dark hallway inside. With a sigh, Gabriel followed him into the farmhouse, attempting to close the door behind him; once open, it was suddenly difficult to close once again. He ended up using his shoulder to roughly jam it back into place, scowling at it.

The inside of the house was dark, hot, and humid, and Gabriel knew he’d be sweating like a dog if he could still sweat. It was a funny thing, being sort-of dead. Everything felt the same, for the most part. His body just didn’t always react the way it would have if he were still alive. Even without the sweat, the heat was still uncomfortable as hell, and made the front hallway feel suffocating. Like he was trapped in a too-warm cave.

From deeper inside the house, he heard something mechanical turn on with a loud, low hum, and then cool-ish air began chugging out of the floor vents, like it, too, was sluggish from the summer heat. A moment later, lights turned on, revealing the front hallway of the Morrison ancestral home.

“Took a moment, but everything looks like it’s still working,” Jack said, popping out from a door that Gabriel hadn’t realized was in the hall. “I knew putting the generator in was a good idea, even if Aunt Viv tried to fight me on it.” He chuckled briefly at the memory. “Sure saved her butt a few times when the summer storms came rolling through. And it’s saving us now, too.” He dusted his hands off on his jeans, his eyes looking far off at something only he could see. Gabriel frowned, annoyed. He knew that look a little too well on Jack, from back when things had started going downhill after Venice, and it was like Jack wanted to escape into some memory, some other reality. It had annoyed him then, and it certainly annoyed him now, especially since this whole trip was his idea in the first place.

Leaving Jack behind to his memories, Gabriel walked down the hallway and into the open kitchen, grimacing at the state it was in. Dust caked the countertops and windows, a few of the cabinet doors hanging crazily off their hinges as time had taken its ravages. The refrigerator, at least, was humming quietly in its place, indicating that it was actually working, though Gabriel was a little afraid about what Darwinian experiments might be lurking inside. 

The floor creaked behind him as Jack stepped into the kitchen and took the grocery bags from Gabriel. “Sorry,” he said quietly, not looking at him as he walked to the fridge and put the food inside. Nothing oozed out, to Gabriel’s immense relief. “No one’s been here for close to ten years. Not for more than a day, at least.”

“Did you bring me on this trip just to get me to help you clean up a decade’s worth of dirt?” Gabriel asked, his voice somewhere between indignant and teasing. He wasn’t even sure where he landed on that scale quite yet. _Ten years_? Didn’t Jack have a sister or something? He vaguely remembered Jack mentioning his sister. Wouldn’t she have taken over the farm?

“What? No!” Jack protested, face turning red. Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smirking. “No, you don’t have to do anything, this is -- it’s my mess to clean up.” He looked around at the filthy kitchen a little despairingly. “I’ve been thinking about coming back here for years now, fixing the place up. Guess I didn’t realize how much fixing it needs.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “It’s just dirt, Jack. No need to get so melodramatic about it.”

Jack looked at him, face carefully blank, and turned away. “Right. You’re right. Yeah.” His shoulders moved carefully up and down, like he was trying to control his breathing. Gabriel remembered watching him do it before big speeches. Before. “Okay. I’m going to go clean up a few of the bedrooms and start some laundry. Uh, if you want to follow me upstairs, you can have your pick of rooms. Ange gave you your instructions, right? I wanna give you time to follow them today.”

Gabriel felt his eyebrows creep up towards his hairline. Separate bedrooms, huh? Then what was even the point of him coming out to this godforsaken corner of the country during a heatwave? _Still don’t trust me enough to sleep in the same room as me, Jack?_ he wanted to ask. _Gonna lock me in my room every night, make sure I can’t come out and slit your throat in your sleep?_ The words bubbled on his tongue, sharp and poisonous.

“Sounds good,” he said instead, and followed Jack up a set of steep farmhouse stairs that desperately needed a new coat of paint.

The second floor of the house was gloomy and dark as well, thick curtains pulled into place over the windows to block out the light. The floorboards creaked under their feet as they walked down the hallway, all the doors shut like a row of sentinels in front of them. Maybe Jack had brought him here to murder him, instead. This certainly felt like the set-up to several horror movies Gabriel had seen over the years. 

Jack opened a door towards the end of the hallway, revealing a relatively clean room with a double bed, a worn pine dresser, and a small mirror above it. The walls were painted a light blue -- calming, Gabriel thought -- and what looked like a handmade quilt was spread across the bed, tucked neatly beneath two pillows. A small bookshelf was tucked into one corner, a couple rows of clearly well-loved paperbacks stacked on its shelves. “Does this work?” Jack asked. “There’s another, slightly bigger room down the hall, but this one is the quietest in the house. It was Sadie’s room.”

“Your sister?” Gabriel asked, a little surprised. “Is she going to be okay with me sleeping in here?”

Jack coughed roughly. “Yeah, it’s fine. Doesn’t matter anymore. She, uh. She’s been gone for about ten years now. Stomach cancer.”

Oh. That explained some things.

Before Gabriel could say anything, Jack cleared his throat and turned away from the doorframe. “Anyway. It’s fine. I can get it cleaned up quick for you, just let me know.”

“This works,” Gabriel murmured, glancing around the room again. There were a few nails in the walls, embedded in the plaster, where photos used to hang. He wondered what had happened to them. Where they’d gone. Who had taken them. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Okay, I’ll get out of your way. Let me know when you want to eat.” And then Jack slipped down the hall, back into the gloom, leaving Gabriel standing in front of his dead sister’s bedroom. 

Oh yeah, this trip was going to be just fucking peachy.

***

When Gabriel left the room a few hours later (a little shaky, a little smoky, but that was pretty par for the course these days), the sun had just started to set over the horizon, washing the pale blue Indiana sky in pinks and yellows and faint reds. Jack had apparently gone through the house and opened all the curtains, and light now poured through the windows, turning the dreary, dilapidated farmhouse into something cheery. And a little quaint. He could hear faint movement downstairs, and a moment later --

Jack was humming. It was soft, but that was unmistakably Jack’s deep, gravelly voice humming to himself down in the kitchen, tuneless and toneless. Then the sound of a knife on a cutting board, methodical chopping as Jack sliced something up. Maybe the carrots they had bought earlier that day. 

He moved quietly down the stairs, stepping lightly on the creaking wood so he wouldn’t startle Jack and make him stop humming. It was pretty bad, yeah, but it was also… relaxing. Jack’s humming had always reminded him of the motor engine purr of a cat he’d had growing up, a massive Maine Coon that liked to drape herself all over Gabe when he was sick. Her purr had been as rumbly and offkey as Jack’s humming, but both sounds put him right to sleep, content in the knowledge that he was safe in his bed. That he’d feel better in the morning.

He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, taking in the scene: Jack before him, bathed in the last rays of the day’s sun as it set, back turned to him while he chopped away at the cutting board. His broad shoulders clad in a black t-shirt, a pair of well-worn work jeans on his legs. His white head bobbing slightly with whatever tune was in his head while he worked. His hair looked slightly damp -- had he taken a shower? The kitchen smelled like Lysol, that chemical-lemon smell that Gabriel knew so well, and the countertops looked much more clean than the last time Gabriel had seen them.

“Been busy?” he asked, smiling crookedly as he watched Jack nearly jump out of his skin in front of him.

And then there was a knife embedded in the doorjamb next to Gabriel’s face.

“Fuck!” Jack gasped, holding a hand to his chest. Gabriel stared at the silver blade quivering next to his eye. “You fucking scared me, Gabe!”

Raising his eyebrows, Gabriel turned slowly to look at Jack. “Yeah. I can see that.”

“How’d you avoid all the creaky stairs?” Jack asked, scowling lightly as Gabriel unstuck the knife from the wall (not without a considerable amount of effort) and handed it back to him. “I got in trouble basically every time I tried to sneak downstairs as a kid! My aunts said they could hear every step!”

“Smoke monster, remember? Also, former covert black ops agent.”

“You’re not a monster,” Jack said, automatic, washing the knife quickly before going back to chopping. There was a mound of carrots sitting in one corner of the cutting board, and it looked like he was working his way through an onion at the moment. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for the words of affirmation, doctor. I _did_ just finish up my stuff for Angela, so I promise I understand my intrinsic worth as a human being and don’t view myself as an irredeemable monster at the moment.”

“Good,” was all Jack said, dicing the onion with a few judicious slices. He pushed the pieces next to the carrot slices on the board. “Can you grab the potatoes for me, please?”

The potatoes -- which had been washed and peeled, apparently -- were sitting in a bowl further down the counter, and Gabriel pushed them closer to Jack, who grabbed one and began cutting it into chunks. “What are you making?” Gabriel asked.

“Beef stew.” 

“Little hot for that, isn’t it?”

“If you’re a coward, sure. This is food that’ll stick to your ribs. Good for farm work.”

“Are we farming tomorrow? That’s news to me.”

Jack waved a hand dismissively. “You don’t have to. But I noticed a couple fields of corn that need some work, which is a miracle in itself. So _I’ll_ be farming tomorrow.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“I dunno. Read a book? Drink a six pack? Relax? Whatever you wanna do. Hell, you could even go into town if you wanted, I guess. There are some nice music stores in the city that I used to go to a lot, when I had the chance. I’m pretty sure they’re still around. You could check those places out.”

Shock rippled through Gabriel at Jack’s words. “You’re not going to follow me around?” he asked. “Thought you were supposed to keep a close eye on me, make sure I don’t sneak off to go rejoin Talon or whatever.”

Jack looked up at Gabriel then, his expression solemn even as he kept deftly cutting through root vegetables. “If I thought you were going to run away, I wouldn’t have asked you to come on this trip in the first place, Gabe,” he said. “I’m not your babysitter, obviously, since you’re like twenty years older than me --” 

“I am _four_ years older than you, you asshole --”

“-- and I know you can take care of yourself,” Jack finished speaking over Gabriel, turning to the old stove and cranking a dial to turn it on. Flames leapt up underneath a large cast iron skillet, and Gabriel could see a bowl of cut up meat on the counter next to it. “This is supposed to be a kind of vacation for us,” he said. “So you can rest.”

“Because I wasn’t resting enough back at the watchpoint?” Gabriel grit his teeth. It felt like all he did these days was sit in quiet rooms and do mindfulness exercises, then go be poked and prodded by various doctors in an effort to control the pain and understand his mostly-dead physique. “So, what, I’m supposed to do the exact same thing I was doing, but now just in the middle of Bumfuck, Indiana?” He could see wisps of smoke curling past the corner of his eye, a sure sign that his anger was getting out of hand. 

He didn’t really want to get it back in hand, though. Maybe getting angry would help Jack understand -- no, maybe it would _make_ Jack understand how he felt. How claustrophobic he felt, tied to a body that died and remade itself over and over. How suffocated he was, surrounded by people who used to know him, who used to laugh and smile alongside him, but now looked at him with fear in their eyes. How they hovered over him, waiting for him to fuck up again, to show his “true colors.” 

Maybe, if he got angry enough, he could make Jack understand what it felt like to have everyone simultaneously treat him like an invalid and like a bomb about to go off. 

“You weren’t resting back at the base,” Jack said, dumping the meat into the skillet, browning the beef on all sides. “Neither was I. Too many people around, too many expectations. Like being under a microscope. Everyone waiting for you to fuck up. Believe me, I know what it’s like.”

And suddenly it was like Gabriel could see Jack again -- not Jack, but _Strike Commander Morrison_, in his flowing blue coat and polished boots, watched at all times, from all sides, every move scrutinized, every word overanalyzed by the press and online. The world’s hopes and dreams placed in his lap. Everyone waiting for him to fail.

He had failed. So maybe Jack _did_ understand.

“Right,” Gabriel sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He felt exhausted, his shoulders drooping as it felt like his body suddenly weighed twice what it was supposed to. “So this is our vacation? Why Indiana, then? There are so many nicer places. No offense, but I feel like I’m simultaneously going to tear my skin off because it’s so hot, and drown because it’s so humid.”

“I wanted to see if I could come home again,” Jack murmured, and Gabriel wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear that. Jack had put a large pot on one of the burners, and was filling it with stock and a cup of red wine, stirring it all together over the flames. “It’s quiet out here,” he said, louder this time. “And officially, this farm doesn’t belong to the Morrison family anymore. When my sister died, an anonymous buyer purchased the property. Totally untraceable. And _I’m_ not exactly in the public’s favor anymore, so no one really cares about tramping all the way out here to see the place. We won’t be bothered while we’re here, I promise.”

Gabriel stared at his back, silent, digesting Jack’s words. “Okay,” he said finally, letting out a long exhale. 

“Okay,” Jack said, dumping all the ingredients into the pot and setting the lid on it. “Dinner’s in an hour.”

***

The first few days flew by in the same way: Jack would work, Gabriel would… pretend he wasn’t hiding. And do exercises for Angela. There would be lunch and dinner ready and waiting for him whenever he showed his face downstairs. It was certainly quiet, and Gabriel thought he was going to come down with a serious case of cabin fever if he wasn’t careful. He and Jack talked, more or less. Mostly less. Jack always seemed tired after a long day out in the fields, and he’d never been the most talkative person in the first place. Years of being on his own seemed to have reduced his capacity for conversation even further. And Gabriel wasn’t feeling particularly chatty, either. He just felt a strange, bone-deep exhaustion that also threatened to send him jittering out of his own skin. It was an awful combination; he spent most of his time sleeping, trying to ignore it. It lasted all week, up to the second to last day.

There weren’t any fancy chickens yelling at the sun the next morning, but Gabriel woke up at the asscrack of dawn because Jack woke up then, and Jack wasn’t exactly quiet in the mornings. Even from down the hallway, Gabriel could hear Jack’s heavy tread as he walked around his room, the hiss of the old pipes in the house as Jack took a shower, brushed his teeth, washed his hands. He laid there in bed, tucked beneath Jack’s sister’s quilt, half-considering murdering Jack so he could go back to sleep, half-considering getting up. But what was he going to do? He had precisely zero interest in helping Jack with whatever work he planned to do around the farm, and he had even less interest in doing more exercises and readings for Angela. 

The smell of eggs cooking eventually roused him, and Gabriel made sure to walk heavily down the stairs so that Jack wouldn’t be surprised by his sudden appearance. There was a plate of scrambled eggs with chives ready and waiting for him when he walked through the entrance to the kitchen. Jack’s back was facing him once again, though he was clad in a plain workshirt and jeans this morning as he scrambled more eggs over the stove.

“Morning,” Jack said, jerking his head at the plate. “Eat up, if you want.”

Gabriel sat down and tucked in, knowing Jack wouldn’t be offended by his silence. They had both been men of few words in the mornings, preferring to navigate easily around each other in the all too brief silence of their lives, back before Zurich. Gabriel remembered those mornings with a clarity that surprised him: hips bumping as they brushed their teeth in the bathroom; Gabriel pressing a mug of coffee into Jack’s hands before anything else, because Jack without coffee was a terrifying prospect; Jack tossing Gabriel a shirt from their closet as they got dressed, and Gabriel automatically pulling it over his head, trusting Jack’s judgement. 

“So what’s your plan for the day?”

Jack’s question caught him off guard, and Gabriel coughed as he inhaled eggs instead of air for a moment. “Uh, not sure yet,” he said, putting his fork down.

“Okay,” Jack said, dumping the finished eggs onto a plate for himself and joining Gabriel at the kitchen table. “I’m going out to the north field this morning to see what’s going on out there. I’m pretty sure there’s stuff growing, but we didn’t get close enough yesterday for me to see. But that’s where I’ll be, if you need to find me.” He tucked into his breakfast.

Putting down his fork, Gabriel decided to test the waters. See if what Jack had said yesterday would actually hold up in the morning light. “I was thinking of going into town,” he said, keeping his tone casual, watching Jack carefully for any hint of surprise, or fear. Any indication that Jack was going to take back what he’d said yesterday, tell Gabriel that he _didn’t_ trust him, that this was a prison, not a vacation.

“Sounds good, here are the keys,” Jack said instead, digging in his pocket and putting the remote on the table between them. “Do you want me to look up the music shops I was talking about? I think one of them is named something Latin, but I can’t really remember--”

“It’s fine,” Gabriel said, fighting to control the way his hands trembled as he grasped his own mug. “I’ll look stuff up when I get there.”

“Okay. Do you think you’ll come back around lunch time? Or later? Just want to figure out what to do for food for the day.”

“Not sure.” Gabriel waited for Jack to say something, something like _could you just make a decision?_ or _you need to be back by this time._ Something definite. A rule for Gabriel to break, to see what Jack would do. 

Instead, Jack just nodded. “Well, just let me know when you’re on your way back, at least? Oh! Actually, while I’m thinking about it, could I give you a list of some stuff to pick up while you’re in town? I realized last night that I forgot to get some stuff I need.”

“Sure,” Gabriel said, his lips completely disconnected from his brain. Jack didn’t expect Gabriel to run away. Or if he did, he was going to let Gabriel make that choice. Let him decide to run, if he wanted to. 

It was… it was a lot to realize. To think about. 

“What if I don’t come back? Why are you trusting me like this?” He sounded angrier than he’d intended, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

Maybe Jack would say _You’re a lost cause, anyway,_ or _I’m actually trying to get rid of you, so would you leave already?_ Maybe he’d get angry right back, and they’d devolve into a fight like they used to so many years ago, shouting words that were designed to hurt, words that they weren’t supposed to think about each other, but did. Maybe this was one disappointment too many in a long string of Gabriel’s transgressions, and Jack would _make_ him leave, finally. 

“I made the mistake of not trusting you enough, once, Gabe,” Jack said instead, and he wouldn’t look at Gabriel as he said it, his gaze off to the side instead, focused on some spot on the wooden floor, “and it nearly destroyed everything I love. It nearly destroyed you. I can be stupid, but I know how to learn from my mistakes.” He looked up then, and the intensity in his eyes startled Gabriel, the way they bored into him, like Jack could see straight to his rotten soul. “I’m not here to be your nanny or your jailer or anything. I’m here to be your… your friend, hopefully. If you want.”

_It nearly destroyed everything I love. It nearly destroyed you._

Gabriel sat frozen for a moment, staring at Jack, who stared calmly back at him, those blue eyes clear but inscrutable. _It’s a trick_, some dark corner of his mind whispered. _This is a test, and he wants you to fail. He brought you out here to fail._

_Fine_, he thought. _Let me fail._

He grabbed the car keys from between them, and walked out the door. Jack didn’t say a word behind him.

*** 

Gabriel was halfway to Bloomington when his phone buzzed. A text from Jack. Corn fields whizzed by him at top speeds, an endless sea of monotony broken only by the occasional billboard or signs for gas stations. He grit his teeth, resisting the urge to pick up his phone and see what Jack had sent. It didn’t matter. He was leaving. 

He _was_.

How the fuck could Jack say _it nearly destroyed you_? Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he see that Gabriel _was_ destroyed? That whoever he was, whoever he was supposed to be now didn’t -- _couldn’t_ \-- exist? All that was left behind was a husk that could do nothing but die over and over, disappoint the ones closest to him, be filled with nothing but emptiness and anger. He wasn’t _Gabriel_ anymore, and he never would be again. He was Reaper. It was high time he reminded Jack -- reminded everyone -- of that. 

It was hard to see the road suddenly, and he pulled over, feeling tears spill onto his cheeks. He gripped the steering wheel and screamed, trying to give voice to the overflowing rage and grief that threatened to choke him. What did it matter, what did it all fucking matter? He was a dead man pretending at being alive, he was a monster, he was --

His phone buzzed again. The text from Jack, reminding Gabriel of its existence. He picked up the phone, fully intending to just throw it out the window and onto the road, but he caught a glimpse of the message anyway.

_if u have a chance, can u pick up some more eggs and a new 10ft hose. the one here was chewed thru :( thx!_

He stared at the message for a moment, and then a disbelieving laugh bubbled out of his throat. The terrible violence he’d felt rising inside him so quickly slid away like a sheet of water. He pressed the phone to his forehead, closing his eyes, tears still slipping down his face. “You text like a dork,” he whispered to no one. He smiled, small, only for a moment. He put the phone back into the cupholder. He took a breath, his vision clear again.

He drove the rest of the way to the city, and went to a music store.

***

It was sunset by the time he pulled into the driveway in front of the farmhouse, and he could see Jack in the side yard, washing something in a bucket. He looked up as the car drew close and waved at Gabriel, who parked and grabbed the bags from the trunk. The sky overhead was a deep orange as the sun sank into the horizon, streaks of red and gold illuminating the fields around them. It was… breathtaking, Gabriel had to admit, even with the heavy humidity pressing down on everything. He’d seen so many beautiful sunsets all over the world, but this one held its own, like someone had taken a watercolor brush to the sky over the waving sea of corn and wheat. Everything was golden.

Even Jack seemed to be glowing in the light. He was covered in dirt, wiping sweat from his face as he approached Gabriel, and for a moment, Gabriel could see the younger man he used to be, tall and strong and capable, golden hair streaked with sweat. Unscarred by time, by too many poor decisions made only because they were the best option at the time. Gabriel swallowed, unsurprised to feel his throat click around the sudden knot that appeared. Maybe this trip _wasn’t_ just for him. Maybe Jack had desperately needed this, too.

“How was the trip?” Jack asked, a small smile slipping across his face as he awkwardly stuck his hands in his pockets. He seemed… relieved, Gabriel realized with a start, like he hadn’t known that _of course_ Gabriel was going to come back, hadn’t known that Gabriel had sat on the side of the highway and made the conscious decision to return. 

Like he hadn’t known that Gabriel was going to return to _him_.

“It was good,” Gabriel said, handing Jack the bag with the eggs and the hose he’d asked for. “It’s a bigger city than I expected.”

“Thanks.” Jack took the bag and let it dangle by his side, not moving. “Hope it wasn’t too difficult to find your way around.

“Not at all. It may be bigger than I thought, but it’s no LA.”

“That’s for sure.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Neither one of them willing to break the silence first. Gabriel half-thought they might both drown in the humidity. 

A truck passed on the highway, loud and rumbling, and Jack jumped slightly. “Okay!” he said to no one in particular, running a hand through his white hair. “I need to, uh, go get cleaned up. And then I’ll start dinner. How does chicken with corn on the cob sound to you? There’s a fuck ton of corn out in the north field, and I thought, you know, why let it go to waste? I mean, I know we can’t eat it all by ourselves, but at least we can eat some of it, right? And thanks again for grabbing this stuff, I should have realized--”

“Jack,” Gabriel said, cutting off the rambling. “That sounds great. I need to clean up, too. I may not have been digging around in the dirt all day, but I could definitely use a shower. Let me know if you want any help with dinner, okay?”

Jack nodded and laughed -- a short rough sound, more like a cough than anything else, but a laugh nonetheless. “Sounds good. I’ll let you know.” He walked up the steps to the house and kicked his shoes off on the front porch before going inside. The entrance yawned dark and cool, and Gabriel followed him, called by the siren song of air conditioning and running water. 

***

The sky was dark by the time they finished dinner, and Jack asked Gabriel if he’d like to sit out on the back porch and have a beer. Gabriel figured it couldn’t hurt, which was how he found himself sitting on the back steps of the farmhouse in the muggy night air, rolling a cold glass bottle between the palms of his hands, feeling the condensation on his skin. The edge of the nearest field was close, having broken through the orderly Morrison fence line at some point in the past ten years, tall stalks of corn rising up towards the stars like sentinels standing watch in the night.

There were thousands of stars visible tonight, and Gabriel stared up like he always did, a by-product of growing up in a city filled with lights that drowned out the night sky. He remembered being five years old and going up to the mountains with his father and older sister, and standing with his head back and mouth open at night, just staring up at the sky, taking in the dark void filled with stars. The air had been cool and crisp and had tasted good on his tongue, and Gabriel had never felt so large and so small all at the same time, standing there in his tiny five-year-old body, his consciousness hurtling through the cosmos.

Jack sat down heavily next to him, breaking Gabriel out of his reverie. The front of his shirt was splattered with water from doing the dishes, and he had his own beer in hand. They silently clinked their bottles together, an unspoken agreement as they looked out over the fields.

The moon was high and full as well, casting a silvery light over the landscape, and Gabriel glanced at Jack from the corner of his eye, looking at the way the moonlight mixed with the faded yellow light coming from the kitchen behind them. Jack looked softer like this, more relaxed. There were lines at the corners of his eyes, on his forehead, around his mouth: markers of a lifetime of stress that no single person should have to bear. The scars across his face were a faded silver in the moonlight, old and worn, but still ragged from a haphazard stitching job done by shaking, drunken hands still covered in another man’s blood. In Gabriel’s blood. 

(Jack had told him what had happened, the night the Swiss base exploded, only a week or two ago. How he’d woken up with a broken leg, a gashed face, burns running up his sides. The agony of feeling himself already starting to heal wrongly, how it couldn’t compare to the agony of seeing Gabriel’s lifeless body draped over a chunk of concrete, pierced through by rebar. How Gabriel’s eyes had stared up at him, unseeing, blood pooling underneath him. How Jack had run, rebreaking his leg every fifteen minutes so it wouldn’t set the wrong way. Crashing in a barn in some small Swiss town and stitching his face up so it would stop bleeding, but not having a mirror to see his work.)

“Nice night,” Jack said, voice quiet like he was afraid of disturbing the corn.

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, picking at the paper label on his bottle. It _was_ a nice night, the heat of the day tapering off as the evening had continued on. Even the humidity had abated somewhat, though there was still sweat gathering at the small of Gabriel’s back. “Didn’t realize how many stars you could see out here.”

Jack stretched out his legs and looked up at the night sky. “It’s my favorite thing about this place,” he said, like he was admitting some shameful secret. “The house itself… yeah, it’s where I grew up and all, but this spot right here? Sitting on these steps with you, by the corn, underneath the sky? This is home. This spot right here. This feeling.”

Gabriel felt his heart slamming strangely in his chest. Yeah, Jack had basically admitted as much this morning in the kitchen, but Gabriel couldn’t have been sure--

“You planning on staying?” he asked, taking a drag from his bottle. 

“Dunno yet. Part of me wants to. The other part of me… doesn’t know what it wants.” Jack chuckled, the sound rueful. “Well, it knows what it wants. It’s just contingent on other people wanting the same thing.”

Gabriel’s heart was suddenly in his throat, which was a highly inconvenient spot for it to be. “Contingent on who?” he asked. His voice was strangled to his own ears, though Jack didn’t notice.

“Don’t play coy with me, Gabe,” he said, setting his bottle on the porch and turning to face him directly. “I know I said I wanted to be your friend this morning, but… but you’ve gotta know, right? I mean, I don’t think I’ve exactly been subtle. Even when you were trying to kill me for so many years, all I could think about was you. Finding you. Seeing you again, even if it was just one last time. And then you came back to Overwatch, but not back to _me_. And I thought, well, that’s okay. Because now I can see him, and I can help him, even if it takes a while. Even if he hates me.” He stopped, took a shuddering breath, closed his eyes. “And I don’t think you hate me, Gabriel. Not anymore, at least. But I can’t do… I can’t do any of this without you. I’ve never been able to do it without you.”

Gabriel stared at him, mouth agape. He clicked it shut as Jack finished speaking, setting his own beer down. “Yes, you can,” he said, reaching out one tentative hand and putting it over one of Jack’s. “You’ve been doing it without me for years now.”

Jack looked away, jaw clenched. “Yeah, well. I don’t want to.”

“What if I said you don’t have to anymore?” Gabriel tried to decide if he regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth. He didn’t think he did.

Jack’s hand clenched under Gabriel’s own, but he still wouldn’t look at him. “Don’t -- don’t say things you don’t mean,” he said, no, _begged_, gravelly voice suddenly shredded. “You nearly _left_ this morning. And that’s fine. I wasn’t going to stop you. But don’t tell me you’re going to stay if you’re just gonna leave again. I don’t know if I can do that again. I don’t know if I’d be able to stop myself from chasing after you again.”

“Hey,” Gabriel said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I know. I -- I’m sorry. It’s been… you know it’s been tough. Being back. I’m not who I used to be, not anymore. I’m not even sure if I’m human. But this week, while we’ve been here? Maybe I’m a little more human than I thought I was. Maybe you were right.”

Jack looked at him then, eyes wide with shock. He turned his hand and clasped Gabriel’s tightly, his palm rough and warm and _right_. “Gabe,” he breathed, a whisper in the humid night air that floated between them. 

A name. A question. A promise.

“Yeah, Jack,” Gabriel said, and leaned in and kissed him, closed mouth and sweet and familiar. Jack’s lips tasted faintly of beer, his mouth opening on a small, surprised gasp, and Gabriel couldn’t stop himself from deepening the kiss, slipping his tongue past those lips for the first time in years. And Jack had changed, but not this, not the way he kissed Gabriel back, leaning into him as well, bringing one hand up to cup Gabriel’s cheek, thumb slipping over the scars there like they were both in their thirties again and had the world before them. Gabriel brought a hand up and buried it in Jack’s hair, angling his head, directing Jack. As always, a thrill shot through him at the way Jack let Gabriel move him: the immovable Jack Morrison, bending to his touch. 

They broke apart slowly, like neither one of them wanted to be the first to pull away, and Gabriel watched as Jack’s eyes slowly opened, their color a murky blue in the moonlit darkness. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” Jack whispered against Gabriel’s mouth. “I -- I’m sorry. For everything.”

“It’s okay.” He kissed Jack again, short and sweet. Forgiveness. His own apology. “We’ll figure it out. We used to be good at that.”

“We used to be good at a lot of things,” Jack said, and Gabriel didn’t miss the suddenly wicked gleam in his eyes, even though his tone was somber. “What makes you think we’ll still be good at them?”

“Practice,” he said, a grin splitting across his face. His other hand wrapped around Jack’s waist and pulled him closer along the steps. “We put in a lot of hours, back in the day.”

Jack kissed him, short and deep, biting softly on his bottom lip as he pulled away. “Let’s hope it pays off.” He smiled back at Gabriel, and Gabriel couldn’t believe how much he’d missed that look on Jack’s face. How much he’d missed Jack looking at him like that. 

“Let’s get to work,” he said, pressing Jack backwards, the angle slightly awkward but all the better for it, and he suddenly felt like this was the only moment that had ever mattered, his entire life leading up to this: Jack’s back against the steps, Gabriel over top of him, the night sky enveloping them both. 

Jack laughed beneath him, nearly breathless. “That line work for you often?” he teased, wrapping his arms around Gabriel’s neck, pulling him down even more.

“More or less.” 

“Guess you’re hoping this is one of those _more_ times.”

“Don’t really have to hope,” Gabriel said, thrilling at the way Jack’s legs parted beneath the weight of his hips, the way it felt so familiar to slot themselves together again. “You’ve never shied away from any hard work.”

Jack rolled his eyes but leaned up to kiss Gabriel again, expansive, his mouth going soft the way Gabriel remembered it did. The entire rest of the world got the thin line of Jack’s mouth, hard and unyielding, but Gabriel knew how to coax it out of him; how to press against him, slip his tongue past the seam of Jack’s lips, open him up until they were both panting into each other’s mouths, flushed and wanting. Jack Morrison, always so contained, so controlled. Put-together for the cameras, for the flashing lights, for the demands of the world.

Gabriel knew how to make him _messy_.

They kissed like they were starving for it, Jack’s hands roaming over Gabriel’s back like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch, like he was trying to re-memorize the feel of Gabriel under his hands again. Gabriel rutted his hips, and the angle was awkward and probably painful for Jack, with the stairs digging into his back, but both of them moaned at the sensation.

_Like remembering how to ride a bike_, Gabriel thought, smirking, and Jack bit his lower lip, looking up at him with sharply amused eyes.

“You still with me?” he asked, one hand raking down Gabriel’s back, fingers dragging sharp enough to make Gabriel hiss.

“Of course,” Gabriel said, grinding their hips together again, and Jack threw his head back with a groan, skull making contact with the wooden steps with a sharp crack. 

“Ow,” he muttered, but Gabriel knew it was only a token protest. Jack had taken harder blows to the head and walked them off, after all. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing this on a bed.”

Gabriel chuckled and lifted his head, looking out behind them at the sea of corn waving in the darkness. “Ah, come on Jack. It’s not like the corn has seen any worse.”

Jack mock-glared at him, but the corners of his mouth twitched with a hidden smile. “We’re both too old for this and you know it,” he pointed out. “Also, there may or may not be actual lube upstairs. So, your choice I suppose. Though I would like to point out that both of our backs will thank us in the morning if we move anywhere but the steps.”

“You always did come up with some very convincing arguments,” Gabriel sighed, sitting up and allowing Jack up as well. “Very well, lead the way.”

Jack stood up and stretched, wincing as his back cracked audibly. Gabriel bit his lip to stifle a laugh. “Shut up,” Jack groused. “You just want to stare at my ass as we go up.”

“Guilty.”

“Ass.”

“Again, guilty. Let’s get going, I know you need your beauty rest, old man.”

“What can I say, beauty is a curse.” Jack picked up the empty beer bottles and walked inside, placing them on the counter. He looked back over his shoulder at Gabriel, who was still standing on the porch, visible through the screen door. “Coming?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Gabriel grinned and followed him. “You know it, sweetheart.”

Jack laughed and disappeared down the hallway, heading towards the staircase. Gabriel took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. His cock was already starting to stiffen in his pants, just from a little dry humping like teenagers. It had been a while, he supposed. Several years, in fact.

Not since before Zurich.

He could hear Jack moving around upstairs. In his own bedroom, it sounded like. Because they’d been sleeping in separate rooms this whole week. Had barely talked, other than the occasional outburst. Gabriel had nearly _run away_ earlier today, convinced of his own inhumanity, trapped by his own anger. And now, what, a couple of half-stilted conversations and they had kissed and made up?

Fuck, what were they doing?

“Gabe?” Jack called from upstairs. “You coming?”

Gabriel’s shoulders jumped as he laughed softly, a little hysterically. “Yeah, just a sec,” he called back. His skin felt itchy, crawling over his forearms, wisps of black smoke curling up a few centimeters into the air. What were they doing? Why did they think this would solve anything, jumping back into bed together after years of heartache and death and pain? They weren’t the same people they used to be, all those decades ago. Too much had changed.

_Maybe that’s the point_, said some small voice in Gabriel’s head. _You’re not the same. But does it matter? You still call him Jack. He still calls you Gabe. You may not be the same, but you’re still you._

_That doesn’t make any sense_, Gabriel thought, but it actually did. Even when they had been _Reaper_ and _Soldier: 76_, they had still been _Gabe_ and _Jack_ to each other. 

Maybe they wouldn’t fit together as seamlessly as they had before. But they could learn.

“Gabe?”

Jack’s worried face broke Gabriel out of his reverie, and he realized he’d somehow climbed the stairs and let himself into Jack’s room without noticing. A single lamp on the bedside table cast a soft sphere of golden light into the room, throwing dark shadows across the lines of Jack’s face as he frowned at Gabriel.

“Everything okay?”

Gabriel blinked, and smiled. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Just… thinking about some things.” He brought a hand up and cupped Jack’s face, felt the prickle of his ever-present stubble against his palm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jack said, turning to press a kiss into the center of Gabriel’s hand. “You sure you’re okay? We don’t have to do anything tonight, I know it’s kind of sudden--”

“Jack,” Gabriel interrupted, a laugh bubbling up in his chest, “it’s okay. I’d argue it’s been too long, actually.” He brushed his thumb over the thin skin underneath Jack’s eye, marveling at how familiar the sensation felt, how right it was. “If you’re having second thoughts, that’s fine. But just so you know, I’m all in.”

Jack smiled, and it was equal parts relief and delight as it stretched across his face. “Good. Because I’m all in, too.”

“Then let’s get to it, soldier,” Gabriel said, making Jack laugh. They moved together towards the bed, kissing the whole time, dropping clothing as they went. It took a few awkward seconds to take off their boots, but practiced hands removed shirts and pants, leaving them discarded on the floor behind them. 

Jack’s body was covered in scars, just like Gabriel knew it would be, but some of the newer ones made him pause. He stroked a finger down a jagged gray line that slashed across Jack’s flank, an unspoken question. 

“Morocco,” Jack said, running his own hands down Gabriel’s sides. “Wasn’t quite fast enough, IED went off. Took some shrapnel to the side. It’s fine. I survived, obviously.”

Gabriel pressed his lips into a thin line. Yeah, Jack survived, but it must’ve been pretty bad to leave such a big scar. He’d seen Jack’s healing factor in action, he knew how much damage it took to leave behind a reminder like this.

“Gabe.” Jack’s tone was fond but exasperated. “If it wasn’t fine, I wouldn’t be here, right? Now come on, I’d like you to touch my dick before we both turn to dust at some point.”

A laugh burst from Gabriel at that, and he pushed Jack towards the bed, backing him up until Jack’s legs hit the mattress and he fell onto his back. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, watching Gabriel with an amused expression, his legs spreading easily. He’d always been so open for Gabriel, so easy for him, and Gabriel felt a shiver run up his spine. 

Jack’s cock was already starting to harden, thick and ruddy against his muscled thighs. Gabriel’s mouth watered. “Back up a little more for me,” he said, surprised at how husky his voice had already become. Jack scooted up the bed a little more, giving Gabriel plenty of room to kneel between his legs and take Jack into his mouth, startling a moan out of the other man. He felt Jack stiffen further in his mouth, the head grazing the back of his throat as Jack bucked his hips a little bit.

“Fuck, Gabe!” Jack said, his hands coming up to rest against Gabriel’s shaved head, and for the first time in years, Gabriel missed having longer hair that Jack could twine his fingers through. He glanced upwards, pressing the flat of his tongue to the underside of Jack’s cock, but Jack’s head was thrown back against the mattress, his eyes screwed shut. Gabriel would have smirked, if he’d been able to.

Pulling off, Gabriel tapped Jack’s thigh. “Up,” he said, and Jack complied, bringing his legs up so that his feet were flat against the bed. “Good,” Gabriel said, wrapping one hand around the base of Jack’s cock, stroking it lightly. He stretched, touching two fingers to Jack’s mouth, and Jack got the picture quickly, opening his lips to allow Gabriel to press inside, tongue wrapping around his fingers and sucking like Gabriel had just fed Jack his own cock. Gabriel groaned low in his chest. God, he wanted that, wanted those lips wrapped around him, wanted to spill down Jack’s eager throat, knowing he’d take it all. But there were other things he wanted more. Couldn’t let himself get distracted.

When his fingers were wet enough, Gabriel drew his hand away, leaning down again to take Jack back into his mouth. He wrapped his lips around the head, tonguing the slit, a slight taste of salt filling his mouth, and Jack’s cock twitched against his tongue. Bringing his hand down, he pressed his wet fingertips to Jack’s hole, not doing anything more than just rubbing against the muscle as he sucked. Jack groaned above him, his legs widening even more, allowing Gabriel better access. He chuckled, the vibrations making Jack tense, and Gabriel swallowed as much of him as he could, letting the head bump the back of his throat before he pulled off. 

“Gabe, please,” Jack groaned, but Gabriel shushed him, pressing his hips up a little higher, starting to fold Jack in on himself. “I’m not as young as I used to be,” he mumbled, but didn’t make any moves to stop Gabriel.

“Turn over then, old man,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “You’ve seemed pretty spry to me over these past few years.” 

Jack let out a husky laugh, tilting his hips up even more. “What can I say, running around fighting bad guys keeps me young.” He lightly kicked Gabriel’s shoulder with his heel. “You gonna run your mouth some more, or you gonna put it to better use?”

“Needy,” Gabriel murmured, but took the not-so-subtle hint and pressed in, licking a long stripe that started at Jack’s hole and went up over his perineum, ending just under his balls. Jack gasped in his hands, and Gabriel did it again, taking in the musky smell of _Jack_ down here, soap from the shower he’d taken before dinner and a hint of salty sweat. He pressed his tongue against the tightly furled muscle of Jack’s hole, getting it wet and loosening it slowly, listening as Jack moaned above him, mostly just a string of Gabriel’s name and expletives over and over. Finally, when he judged that Jack was loose enough, he pressed a single wet finger against his entrance, tracing over it slowly before pushing it inside, feeling Jack clench around the digit on a gasp. 

“That’s it,” Gabriel said, looking up and smiling at the way Jack’s chest was flushed red, his nipples hard as he panted. Jack looked back at him, eyes slightly hazy, and Gabriel couldn’t believe the reactions he was pulling out of him, how responsive Jack was being to just this. His cock was red and still wet from Gabriel’s mouth, a small pearl of precum glistening at the slit as it laid against Jack’s stomach, and Gabriel felt his own cock pulse between his legs.

“There’s lube on the nightstand,” Jack gasped out, one arm flopping vaguely in the direction of the bottle that was, in fact, sitting on the nightstand, mostly full. “Hurry up and get it!”

Gabriel chuckled, crooking his finger inside of Jack’s body and watching as Jack closed his eyes, muscles in his neck tensing at the sensation. “Alright,” he said, easy, like he wasn’t desperate to bury himself inside of Jack, like his cock wasn’t throbbing nearly constantly at the thought of sliding into him. “I’ve got you, Jack.”

Pulling his finger out, Gabriel got up and fetched the bottle, relieved that it appeared to be a new bottle, not a relic from Jack’s youth. Jack rearranged himself on the bed, rolling over onto his stomach and propping up his hips with a couple pillows.

“What?” he asked at Gabriel’s pointed look. “It’s been a while. I’d like to be able to walk tomorrow.”

Gabriel slipped back onto the bed, covering Jack’s body with his own and tucking a kiss into the curve of his shoulder. “Of course,” he said, reveling in the feel of Jack in his arms, his warm bulk feeling like home against Gabriel’s skin. He pressed more kisses across Jack’s shoulder blades and the scars that littered his back, taking his time moving down, back towards the swell of his ass. “Fuck, I missed you, Jack,” he breathed, picking up the lube again and squeezing a liberal amount into his hand, warming it up. “Even while we’ve been here together, I’ve missed you so much.”

Jack shifted underneath him, pressing his ass up into Gabriel’s hands. “Me, too,” he said, voice strangely muffled. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

“Thank you for being someone I could come back to,” Gabriel murmured, sliding two fingers into Jack and pressing them against the soft walls inside. Jack gasped but relaxed into the sensation, allowing Gabriel to scissor his fingers and stretch him even further. They were quiet for a while, the only sounds in the room the soft squelch of lube as Gabriel fucked him on his fingers, and Jack’s breathing. 

Gabriel added a third finger after a few minutes, thrusting them even deeper into Jack, searching… there! He heard Jack groan loudly just as his body clenched, the pad of Gabriel’s finger rubbing _hard_ into Jack’s prostate, unrelenting. “That’s it,” Gabriel said, knowing that Jack could hear the grin on his face. He pressed down on the spot inside of Jack even harder, other hand holding onto Jack’s hip to prevent him from moving too much. His cock throbbed and twitched, and Gabriel took a breath, pulling his fingers out, about to slip four back inside and stretch Jack even more, just to be safe.

“I’m ready,” Jack groaned, his forehead pressed to the mattress, eyes squeezed shut. His whole body was trembling, sweat running down his back, and Gabriel groaned in answer, squeezing the base of his cock to stave off the orgasm that suddenly threatened to overwhelm him.

“You sure? Like you said, it’s been a while,” he said, even as his body screamed at him to just _fuck Jack already!_

“I’m sure,” Jack said, opening his eyes and twisting his neck to look at Gabriel. He gave him a slight smile. “I wanna feel you. Come on, Gabe.

“Fuck me.”

That was all the encouragement Gabriel needed. He slicked himself up with some more lube, taking his cock in hand to guide it into Jack’s body. Pressing the head against Jack’s (_tight, too tight, need to stretch him more!_) hole, he watched, entranced, as it pushed slowly inside, tight, clinging heat enveloping him as he and Jack let out simultaneous moans. 

“Yeah,” Jack panted, ducking his head again, shoulders tense, and Gabriel could feel him forcing himself to relax around Gabriel’s length. “That’s it, keep going.”

Gabriel leaned over Jack, his own body breaking out in sweat as he pushed in more and more, the slide slow as he eased Jack into it. “Fuck,” he mumbled, hanging his head. “God, Jack, you’re so tight.”

Jack laughed, but it was garbled as Gabriel bottomed out, and he clenched around him, breathing hard. “God,” he whispered, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. “God, Gabe, _fuck_.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Gabriel said, couldn’t stop the endearment from tumbling from his lips. He braced himself, waited until Jack relaxed just enough that he could draw nearly all the way out before pushing back in again, a little faster this time. “Yeah, you feel so good, _shit_, can’t believe how much I missed this.” He felt Jack shudder underneath him, pulled out and thrust back in, faster again. “Fuck, Jack!”

He felt Jack shift, his knees coming up beneath him to adjust the angle, and Gabriel sat back, gripping Jack’s hips. “Faster,” Jack said, his hands making fists in the sheets, and Gabriel complied, speeding up his thrusts slowly but surely until he was slamming in and out of Jack, making him cry out on every other thrust. Jack’s cock was hard and dripping between his thighs, swinging with every thrust, but Jack wasn’t touching it -- couldn’t, Gabriel realized, without losing his grip and falling back down to the mattress and throwing off their rhythm.

Sitting up on his haunches, Gabriel leaned over Jack again, bearing him down, one hand wrapping around Jack’s cock and squeezing, hard, the way he knew Jack liked it. He moved his hand up and down the length, fast, in time with his own thrusts, felt it stiffen in his grip, heavy and blood-hot, ready to burst. “Come on, Jack,” he panted, fire burning at the base of his spine, spreading to his belly, his balls tightening as he fucked into him over and over again. “Come on, come for me. Let go, Jack.”

With a shout, Jack did, clenching tight, _so tight_, around Gabriel’s cock, spilling onto the bed beneath them, and Gabriel groaned and followed him over the edge, emptying himself into Jack’s willing body, hot and wet between them. His vision whited out for a moment as fire zipped through him, consuming him, until he was nothing but the points of connection between himself and Jack: his hand on Jack’s hip, his cock buried in Jack’s ass.

Aftershocks zipped up and down his spine as he came back down to himself, opening his eyes as he felt himself give a few, smaller thrusts that made Jack groan and clench around him again. Gabriel hissed, cock already oversensitive, and pulled out slowly, making Jack moan again and collapse to the bed, directly onto the wet spot.

“Jack?” Gabriel asked, lethargy already pulling at his bones, a warm, satiated feeling floating up from his fingertips through his body. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, muffled. “Just give me a minute.” 

There was something strange in his voice, and Gabriel frowned and turned Jack over, eyes widening at the drying tear tracks that streaked down Jack’s face. “What happened?” he asked, frantic suddenly, “Are you hurt?”

“No, no!” Jack sat up, taking Gabriel’s face in his hands, a noise that was half-laugh, half-sob caught in his chest. “I’m okay, I promise. Just… happy. And a little overwhelmed. But happy.”

Gabriel felt himself soften, adrenaline rushing out of him just as soon as it had rushed in, leaving him even more tired than before. “Alright,” he said, pulling Jack into a kiss. He could taste the salt from his tears on Jack’s lips, and he kissed them away. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”

After a bit of clean up and settling down (“I’m not sleeping in the wet spot!” “You’re the one who made it!” “So? It’s your fault, so you get to sleep on it.”), Jack reached over and turned the bedside lamp off, plunging the room into comfortable darkness as he laid back down. Gabriel slung his arm around him, resting his head against Jack’s chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart, his lungs filling with air. Steady. Alive.

One of Jack’s hands came up to caress Gabriel’s shoulder, a light, thoughtless motion he’d done countless times before. His fingertips brushed over old and new scars, over and over again. A metronome of touch, lulling Gabriel to sleep.

They were set to return to the watchpoint the next day, and Gabriel found himself mourning the space they had carved out for themselves here, in Jack’s old family home. Nothing but endless sky above them, amber fields surrounding them. It wasn’t _theirs_, he knew. They were just borrowing it. Well, he was. But it felt like theirs, suddenly, in a way so many other places never had.

“I can hear you thinking,” Jack said, sleepy and slow. “Go to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

Gabriel thought about the Indiana sunrise that would no doubt greet him tomorrow, when Jack woke at the asscrack of dawn and threw open the windows. The way the sun would send streaks of blue, pink, red, and orange across the sky as it lifted above the horizon, like someone threw a watercolor set into the air and let it spill everywhere.

They were leaving tomorrow, and that was fine, Gabriel decided. They could always come back, after all. Re-find this house, again and again, as many times as they needed to, re-find themselves and each other.

Gabriel took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. He let his eyes close, and listened to Jack’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/stuffy_jj)


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